Site Stats and Short Stories

I last updated you on the behind-the-scenes goings-ons here on February 20th, and in light of my big week last week, I thought it was time to do so again. Until last week, the busiest single day on my blog was back in late December, when I first posted news that I was finally blogging on my Facebook. I got 37 hits that day (which contributed to my overall largest week), but the hits quickly crashed to a low but sustainable level.

That was the state last time I discussed the site stats here. The traffic had been hovering around 70 hits per week (the sequence I’d relayed was 70 hits the week after my December peak, then 60, 77, 69, 57, 73, and 75; since then WordPress has revised these stat figures to read 71, 60, 74, 72, 57, 71, and 77; I believe the stat-change most probably relates to my shifting of time for Daylight Savings while WordPress maintains a constant internal clock, so the day in which a hit was counted has moved around for those hits on the midnight-margin of my time zone). I had supposed that next week would show a similar number, but instead I started to notice a gentle upward-slope in the site traffic over the next few weeks. The next week earned 87 hits, and the week after 112, which topped my previous high of 110 on the week of the aforementioned highest-hit day in December. This trend continued, with the following week breaking that new record at 122 hits.

Then last week happened. I’m not 100% sure what happened last week. Maybe the personal stories struck a chord. Maybe the double-posts helped. I’m not 100% certain. The week was on track to hit something close to the previous week’s 122 hits, with the generally upward-sloping site traffic. Then Wednesday’s traffic blew my mind (insofar as my mind was adapted to relatively low site-traffic levels) when in a single day I drew 59 hits (or 61 by the new, post-daylight-savings accounting), far surpassing the previous heavy-traffic day. I supposed that that level of traffic wasn’t sustainable, but surprisingly the next day held pretty solid at 50 (now 46) hits.

The traffic did slope downward pretty sharply after that, bottoming out at 5 hits yesterday (well below what I’d come to expect as the new norm of 10-hits or more per day), but this didn’t derail last week from becoming a huge spike in my weekly traffic at 197 hits last week. I personally find that pretty incredible, even if I’m predicting a much lower hit-count this week (most likely, I believe, around 80 or 90 hits this week).

So there’s the behind-the-scenes data. Now, for one other quick update. I figured out, yesterday, how to fix my short story and properly address the points and comments of my story readers. One subtle plot change will satisfactorily resolve the one major hanging plot thread, and a couple others will address the character shortcomings. And I’m also thinking about the history of this “world” and will do a short write-up that will give me a few details I can pepper into the story to give it more depth. Then, once I’ve finished reviewing and revising the dialog, I think I’ll have a much improved story. June 15th seems like a long way off, but I have a feeling it will be sneaking up on me in very short order.

I hope you’ve enjoyed your stay here at the Casa Chez Watkins, and invite you back for more in the days and weeks to come. Happy writing!

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